Saturday, November 3, 2012

Working Stiffs by Lucy Leitner: Interview & Excerpt

Something has gone horribly wrong in the Pro-Well Pharmaceuticals factory and ex-meth dealer Marshall Owens, the companies owner and drug genius, must keep the surrounding Pittsburgh area from finding out. Unfortunately, the undead assembly line workers have other plans.

The infection spreads and chaos reigns supreme as the surviving Pro-Well employees battle their way through offices with whatever weapons they can scrounge from the supply closet. They must get outside. But they don't know that The General is out there amassing a shambling, rotting army of Pittsburgh's finest.

Will the employees make it?

Will two repulsive works find love in a janitors closet?

How many office workers can one man take down with the blade of a paper cutter and some staplers?

Will Own Marshall go back to selling meth?

And most important of all, will Pro-Well's stock value plummet?

Find out all the answers in this brilliant new horror/comedy novel reminiscent of the style of Christopher Moore.

Marshall
Owens was awakened in his lavish 32nd-floor penthouse apartment in the heart of
downtown Pittsburgh
with some disturbing news. There was a work stoppage at the factory. All the
projects that he had rescued from a life on the street had revolted.
Apparently, a living foreman was required at all times, one with electrical
impulses and more motivation than an insatiable hunger for human flesh (which
really wasn’t all that hard to come by). Marshall Owens flailed in his 7,000-
count Egyptian silver sheets for a few moments after receiving the call from
his loyal assistant Harold. Composing himself, he eased out of his God-sized
bed in his silk sleep tuxedo and slipped into his $5,000 leather-soled,
chinchilla-fur, Armani pink bunny slippers. He shuffled across his plush
bedroom carpet on the second floor of the penthouse and turned the solid-gold
handle on the bathroom door.

He looked
at his unpleasant visage in the diamond-rimmed mirror and shuddered. Shifting
his blue-eyed gaze to Monet’s Rouen Cathedral hanging above the gold toilet, he
combed his deep brown hair plugs, kicked off his slippers, and hopped into the
shower.

After he
buffed his fingernails, put on his tailored suit, and sipped a cup of the most
unfairly traded coffee he could find, he would go down to that plant of his and
discipline his living employees for allowing such a travesty to occur.

That was
the original plan.

But an
hour and thirteen minutes later, when his chauffeured Escalade (Owens was well
aware that the gas-guzzling SUV posed quite the contradiction to his
environmental initiatives, but he felt that he needed a big car to complement
his big lifestyle. And the Prius was kinda queer anyway) arrived at the
factory, there were no employees left. No paid guards, no mutant slaves. Well,
parts of the guards were still scattered on the floor, and the CEO of Pro-Well
Pharmaceuticals, the savior of the South Side, the darling of local media, the
most successful twelve-stepper in the history of Narcotics Anonymous, was
greeted by a grisly scene of bones, blood, and security uniforms.

This was
not a good way to start the day.

Tell us about your current
release.

Working Stiffs isa hilarious tale of zombies in the
office. To cut labor costs, disfigured ex-meth dealer turned CEO of Pro-Well
Pharmaceuticals Marshall Owens has been abducting the homeless from the streets
of Pittsburgh
and injecting them with a virus that turns them into zombies. But when the
undead slaves unionize — sort of — and invade the corporate headquarters, a
motley crew of white-collar office employees must fight them off with the most
mundane office supplies.

My debut novel, the
book was published by Necro Publications in June in paperback, e-book, and
limited edition hardcover.

What are your hero and
heroine of the story like?

My unlikely hero is
Hank, a heavily tattooed, chain-smoking, obsessive-compulsive, self-loathing,
misanthropic, muscular, whiskey drinking gay man. He’s trapped in a dead-end
job at Pro-Well and, oddly enough, comes alive during the zombie apocalypse. In
a non-flesh eating way. Though his traits are very specific, the sentiment
behind Hank seems to transcend labels and he has proven an identifiable
character.

How do you describe your
writing style?

Really dark humor
with satirical elements and one-liners. I like to think that I tend to write in
a cross between academic and surfer dude. Like if Jeff Spicoli aced the verbal
section of his SATs.

Tell us about your family.

We celebrate
Daylight Savings Time. And, no, there is no Festivus Pole involved. But there
is raclette cheese.

As a child, what did you
want to be when you grew up?

Up until about the
8th grade, I was planning on being the first female to ever play
major league baseball.

What are your favorite TV
shows?

I have seen very
few TV shows, but when I like one, I will watch every episode countless times.
Those include Dexter, Twin
Peaks, Arrested Development, Oz (the first 4½ seasons), and Seinfeld.

What is your favorite meal?

Let’s just say that
if I were on death row, there would be a request for chicken strips and
Twizzlers.

Do you have a favorite
quote, quip, or saying? What is it?

From my favorite
movie of all time that has caused me much embarrassment in academics over the
years when I pronounce “Socrates” phonetically, the
illustrious Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Adventure: “Be excellent to each other. Party on, dude.” Words to live by.

Lucy Leitner is the author of the
zombie comedy novel Working Stiffs. Though she was raised in Arlington, VA, she
adopted Pittsburgh as her hometown when she
arrived in 2001 to attend the University
of Pittsburgh. She has
written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh City Paper, and
received the Society of Professional Journalists' Mark of Excellence Award for
an investigative piece she penned while pursuing her masters in journalism at PointParkUniversity. When not working on her second novel, Lucy
chronicles Pittsburgh's
burgeoning film industry at Hollyburgh and imagines the news of today as if the
zombie apocalypse had occurred at The Daily Ghoul .

ContactMe

Disclosure Policy

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact lauriej170@gmailcom.

This blog does accept some types of paid advertising, or paid insertions relating to books and/or literary events .

I write for my own purposes. However, I may be influenced by my background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.

This blog often receives free books or book files to read for review purposes. However, the opinions are my own and my review may be positive or negative depending upon my personal enjoyment of the particular book. I do not get any money or other compensation for my reviews.

The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own. This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.